


Cut deep

by duesternis



Category: The Hunger - Alma Katsu
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Dry Orgasm, Emotionally Stunted Men, Fond insults, Gun Violence, Hand Jobs, M/M, Prostate Massage, Prostate Orgasm, improper wound care, they are still working things out but mccutchen is very stunted, weird sexual arrangements that are not yet in the proper polyamory square
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:47:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28238673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duesternis/pseuds/duesternis
Summary: Eddy stepped aside to let them both pass. Stayed where he was.Bill took the reins and bridle off the horse and then his things from the saddle. Piled them in the usual corner and unbuckled the saddle.Grit his teeth against the coming pain and pulled the saddle down with both arms.Eddy scuffed his boots by the door and Bill looked up from the saddle and at the man. Their eyes met.
Relationships: William Eddy/William McCutchen
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Cut deep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [landofhorses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/landofhorses/gifts), [iamnassau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamnassau/gifts).



> i haven't read the book lol  
> my friends did, though, and well, I really dig these idiots, so here we are.
> 
> special shout out to eliza and percy (love you, babe)

A jackal called out on the plain and Bill McCutchen imagined the soft maw of it digging into his belly.  
The way things were going this was a pretty realistic outlook.   
He sat at his campfire, the bullet wound in his arm bleeding sluggish now, but the arm downright useless for it.  
When it had still been fresh, blood down his arm like a proper flash flood he’d been riding, hell, shooting still.  
Now he could hardly make a fist without the damn muscles seizing up. Damn bullet still somewhere in him, probably.  
Festering, most likely.  
The wound would start to go bad soon now.

His horse snorted, pawed the ground with a tired leg and Bill grunted at it. It snorted again.  
“What,” he rasped, first time he’d spoken in days.  
The horse tossed its head and snorted a third time.  
Bill stepped over the low fire to rub the velvety snout of it.  
It nibbled at his sleeve, ears flicking.  
He shushed it, pulling a hand of oats from the sack on the saddle. The lips gently touching his palm were the softest thing he’d felt all spring.  
With his good hand Bill stroked down the horse’s neck, wet with sweat as it was.  
He’d ridden her hard to get away from the warm corpses he’d left behind.

And now he was all out of options.  
He’d have to turn to the next town and hope they had someone who could get the bloody ball out of him without killing him.  
Tomorrow.  
If he made it through the night.  
The horse nosed at him and Bill decided this side of the campfire was as good to sleep on as the other and sat down heavily.  
A minute later he was asleep, or unconscious.

“Well, look at this.”  
Bill grunted, blinked blearily up from where he’d fallen the night before.  
Horse legs. White socks, not his horse.  
Boots, brown, dusty, same as the damn pants.  
And there was the leering, ugly face of Will Eddy.  
“McCutchen down on his luck.”

He grunted and tried to push himself up on his bad arm. Not a good idea.  
The pain was hot and fresh, like a hot skillet to the face.  
Blood down his arm.  
“Woah,” said Eddy and was off his horse quick as spit.

Better him than Milt, the fucking babyface.  
Better either of them than Mr Reed.

“Overshot home a bit, didn’t you? After getting into trouble? Didn’t want no law following you, I guess?”  
Eddy’s voice was low as he gripped Bill under the arms and heaved him up like a particularly unruly child.  
Or a drunkard.  
The earth surely bucked under him as if he were drunk.  
“Fuck,” said Bill and threw up.  
Naught but bile and whiskey.

“That’s not good. Bullet still in you, huh?”  
Eddy’s big hand came around Bill’s arm and his fat thumb squeezed blood out of the wound. Bill saw black for two long breaths.  
Probably pus in it too.  
“Want me to cut it out? Y’all can’t ride like this, hardly able to stand on your own two feet.”

McCutchen grunted and pointed at his kit on the other side of the burnt down fire. His good, sharp knife was in there.  
He wanted none of Eddy’s mangy blades on his skin.  
“Sit down, man, I’ll get it. C’m’on, sit down, little darlin’.”  
“Ain’t your horse.”  
“About as ugly as one.”  
Eddy grinned, proud of his weak jab and forced Bill down on a log.

The next thing Bill knew was that his arm was bared, jacket wrestled off him, shirt cut up, and Eddy was washing the old blood away with water from his flask.  
It dripped pink to seep into the moss.  
“Milt saw a rider riding like hell were behind him yesterday and then Mr Reed sends me out for a hunt and I see smoke from your pit and, well. Next thing I see is you laying there in your own blood, like someone snuck up on you. Lord, was I disappointed to see y’all still breathing.”  
Eddy’s voice shook the slightest amount and he avoided Bill’s eyes. Probably not being truthful, then.

Bill grunted, breath hissing between his teeth. Eddy was poking at him with his dirty hands.  
“Thought I was going away from the ranch.”  
“Your orienteering is shit, McCutchen. Hold still now, I’m cutting. I felt the bullet there.”

The sky was blue. There was a bird soaring. Some kind of hawk. The horses nickered.

Eddy cut into his arm and there was a drop of sweat running down his temple, going for his eye.  
Bill lifted his good hand and wiped it away, before it made Eddy flinch and cut to the bone.  
There was a grinding sensation from the blade in his arm and then it hit the bullet.  
A second later Eddy had it in his hand and spat on it to get the blood off.

“There you go,” he said with a wink and dropped it in Bill’s hand. “Want me to sew that up?”  
“Don’t want to keep an extra hole, so sure.”  
Eddy laughed at that, shakily, and went to his horse, pulling a little kit out of it. Wooden box with a little horse painted on.  
“Virginia,” he explained without Bill having asked. Bill lifted a brow.  
The kids never had any gifts for him.

Eddy pulled a needle from a scrap piece of fabric and unspooled white thread from around a bobbin.  
Threaded the needle on the damn fifth try and Bill rolled his eyes, washing the blood off his arm with Eddy’s flask. The wound was a large, ugly thing now, angry red and bleeding.  
That would surely scar. Add to the patchwork quilt of Bill’s skin.

Eddy almost sat on Bill’s knee, so close was he crouched and Bill habitually steadied him at the waist, like he always did with Mr Reed.  
Only that Eddy didn’t have much of a waist, broad as he was.  
He was shaking, like his voice.  
Still, Bill steadied him and Eddy sewed the wound shut as neatly as anyone could have done.  
Even tore a strip from the shirtsleeve he cut off and tied that round the arm.

“There. Now you shouldn’t immediately drop dead. Shame that it is.”  
“Didn’t ask you for no kindness.”  
“Yeah, quit your yapping and get up on the horse, McCutchen. We can’t eat you, but I reckon everyone will be mighty pleased I brought you back home.”  
Bill grunted and watched Eddy bring the horses round.

Getting in the saddle jarred the arm, but Bill kept a straight face and Eddy just mounted his and they were off.  
“Mr Reed will be none too pleased, I think, with you out of commission for the next few days. Weeks, maybe.”  
“Don’t need no charity from him. Don’t have to go to the ranch.”  
“Get off your high horse. He’ll let you rest up for as long as you need. Maybe even in the house.”  
“Barn suits me.”  
“That it does. You’re more beast than man either way.”  
Bill scoffed and Eddy whistled to his horse, urging it into a trot.

Every inch more between them was a blessing, so Bill let him ride off.  
His trail was easy enough to follow, what with the loose shoe on the right back hand of his horse.

Between Eddy riding off and the ranch rising up above the valley Bill heard a gunshot. So maybe Eddy had found something they could eat after all.  
Hopefully something other than a bird. Bill would grow wings before long.

Then he rode under the arch that stood free without a fence around the house and barns and there were the children on the porch, shouting for their dad, for Milt.  
Hell, maybe the Almighty heard them, pair of lungs on them.  
And there they all came.

Eddy from the barn, Milt from the paddock round back and Mr Reed from inside the house.  
Dressed in his brown suit, handkerchief in hand. His eyes squinted against the sun.  
Bill touched two fingers to the brim of his hat and stopped his horse in the middle of the yard.

“Bill,” said Milt and pulled his gloves off. Dusty from head to toe, his pretty face sweaty.

“He’s fine,” said Eddy, lighting a cigarette by the barn. “Cut a bullet from his arm and sewed him up. He just needs food and rest.”  
Next to him, on the barn door, hung a young antelope and bled out. Her tongue was dusty, where it hung out of her mouth.

“Damn dust,” mumbled Bill and dropped the reins on his saddle.  
Mr Reed turned around where he stood on the porch and called for the children to come inside.  
Then he closed the door without looking back.

“I’ll be damned.”  
“Come on,” said Milt and put a hand on Bill’s knee.  
He jerked it off, making his horse take a step forward.  
Dismounted and walked into the barn, horse following him.

Eddy stepped aside to let them both pass. Stayed where he was, keeping Milt from following.  
Bill took the reins and bridle off the horse and then his things from the saddle.  
Piled them in the usual corner and unbuckled the saddle.  
Grit his teeth against the coming pain and pulled the saddle down with both arms.

Eddy scuffed his boots by the door and Bill looked up from the saddle and at the man.  
Their eyes met.  
Milt still stood in the yard, gloves in hand and hands on his hips, like a matron. Or foreman.  
Bill swallowed the urge to spit in his direction.

All their damned charity and then only damned Eddy going out to look for him.  
To care for him.  
“You good?”  
“Yeah.”  
“I’ll bring you water and chow.”  
He shrugged and dropped the saddle.

Eddy left.  
Patted Milt on the shoulder on his way up to the house and Milt finally turned back to his work.  
Torturing ranch hands or whatever it was Mr Reed had him doing today.  
Mr Reed.  
Bill spat and started brushing his horse down.  
Pale like a ghost he had been, but not even a hello from him. Lips tight as ever in his neat little beard, soft hands all wrung up in his handkerchief.  
Probably thinking about his ledgers and numbers.

The horse snorted.  
“Here,” mumbled Eddy from the door, shaking a flask and dish at Bill.  
Steaming. Stew, from the looks of it.  
Bill dropped the brush and took the flask from Eddy first. Drank deeply.  
Eddy wiped a spilled drop from his throat and handed him the dish.  
“Eat. It’s hot.”

He ate, wolfing down spoon after spoon, until metal scraped on metal. Then he licked the gravy up. Drank the rest of the water.  
Eddy grinned at him, as if he were the one who cooked it.  
“Good?”  
“Good.”  
They both looked up to the house.  
The windows were open and they heard the children playing, little voices loud and laughing.  
A cloud crept over the sun, throwing wispy shadows over everything.

“C’m’ere,” urged Eddy and pushed Bill into one of the empty boxes.  
Bill dropped the flask and dish in the straw.  
Eddy had his hands on him the next second. Tearing the ruined shirt off of him, pawing at his pants like a whore starved for coin, pushing Bill's hat off, dropping his own.  
Bill pressed him up against the wall of the box and bit at his mouth and jaw, until Eddy turned his head for a proper kiss.  
“Bastard,” he spat into Bill’s mouth and licked at his teeth.

Bill shoved his good hand into Eddy’s pants, found him hard already.  
“Son of a gun,” he breathed and Eddy spat into his palm and fisted Bill’s cock hard and dirty.  
“Honestly thought you was dead, when I found you, pale as a fucking corpse, Bill.”  
Bill grunted and wound his bad hand, arm hurting him like a bitch, into Eddy’s hair.  
Dusty and greasy and unwashed for days. He smelled ripe too. Like horse and sweat and dust and blood from the antelope.  
Bill kissed him again.

They sank to their knees together, leaned on each other, hands down each other’s pants.  
“Ain’t gonna die like that.”  
“What shot?”  
Bill laughed and slipped his hand lower, squeezing Eddy’s balls.  
“Nah, I’ll be shot alright,” he whispered into Eddy’s open mouth. “Will have to be straight ’tween the eyes, though, or I won’t stop coming.”

“Yeah, you’re one to haunt whoever does you in.”  
Eddy said that against the naked skin of Bill’s collar bone, hand pumping Bill’s dick like he was looking for oil down there.  
Bill rested his hurting arm on Eddy’s broad shoulders. Shaking again, like when he’d sewn Bill up.  
“Hey,” he shushed him, rubbing circles into the flat nape of his nap, skin tough from all the sun beating down on it.  
Eddy’s breath hitched and he stopped his frantic fisting, just holding Bill’s cock in his hand.  
Bill did the same for him.  
Keeping each other warm, like they’d done so many times out there in the wild.

“Lord, Eddy, what’s with you?”  
“You had me worried, is all. Here,” he added and made them lay down in the straw, pants around their knees, like a pair of idiots.  
Holding each other’s cocks like an even bigger pair of idiots.  
Bill huffed, nudging Eddy.  
He continued: “You running off is nothing new, yeah, but you’ve been gone two weeks and no note, no nothing. And then we hear there’s been a shooting down at the river and a tall man rode off on a grey mare, hurt. That’s days ago”

Slowly Bill started jacking Eddy again, still stroking his neck, like he was a horse that needed gentling.  
“And Milt seeing a rider, grey mare, your mare, and then you still not home. Had me worried. And I find you and think you’re dead.”  
“Hhm,” hummed Bill softly and slipped his hand between Eddy’s legs, rolling his balls in his palm.

Eddy sighed and started rubbing Bill’s foreskin over the glans. Infuriating.  
“Come on, big guy.”  
Bill shifted his hand and rubbed his barely wet finger against Eddy’s hole.  
Eddy spat into his own hand again and reached back, slicking it over his cleft.  
Eddy kissed Bill with closed eyes and pinched the foreskin gently between two fingers, pushing it as far back as it would go.

Bill put a finger into him, reaching, searching. Eddy pushed his hips down and there; his breath hitched and his hand clenched around Bill’s cock.  
“What, you gonna make me come on your hand?”  
“You want me to?”  
Eddy bit off a curse and licked sweat from Bill’s collarbone.  
“Once. Finish me off proper.”

Bill snorted and started rubbing over the little gland in Eddy’s ass. Like Eddy had taught him.  
Made the men go crazy.  
Made Eddy go liquid and soft in his arms, like a man half his size.  
Like Mr Reed, when Milt fucked him.  
Like Mr Reed, when he made them watch, when he made them take him afterwards, seed spilling out of him like a burst peach.  
Only that Eddy never stopped talking.

Even now, Bill’s longest finger massaging him like this, he kept talking.  
Granted, there were hitches and moans and slurred words, but he yammered on about the ranch or what not.  
Bill grunted here and there, bit at Eddy’s ear, the scruff of his cheek, just to make him gasp and stop for a second, sometimes.  
Licked into his mouth to hold the flood when it became too much.  
Pressed tightly against the gland.

Eddy jerked in his arms, clawed at his back, and – if there weren’t a tongue stoppering him up – he would have shouted.  
Man screams, when you work him over like this.

Bill hummed a pleased little noise into his sweaty hair and rubbed the little gland a few moments longer.  
“Fuck,” said Eddy, with feeling and pulled Bill’s finger out of his body. Bill wiped it on Eddy’s pants and took his leaking cock back in hand.  
“Alright?”  
“Now I know you really ain’t dead. Pair of hands on you about as delicate as fucking shovels.”

Bill scoffed and pulled Eddy close, ignoring the pull on his stitches.  
Their cocks brushed, hot and silky and wet and Bill closed his hand around them both.  
Eddy moaned and waggled his eyebrows, lips slick.  
“Whore,” said Bill with a little grin and took the biting kiss that earned him with grace.

They rutted into Bill’s fist together, like a pair of boys trying their first dreams out in the real world.  
They had straw and hair in their mouths in equal manner and Bill was sure his wound was bleeding again.  
But he didn’t care.

Eddy was here, ugly, contrary, smart-mouthed Eddy. And Milt was out back and Mr Reed up in the house, with the children.  
All safe, all accounted for.  
“Damn, Bill,” groaned Eddy, “You’re gonna twist it off.”  
“Hush, Will, come on now.”  
“Oh, yeah, that’s it.”

Bill put his mouth directly to Eddy’s ear, felt him twitch and shudder, his cock leaking steady now.  
The man was close.  
“Come, boy.”  
And Eddy spilled all over Bill’s cock and hand.  
Bill chased that feeling, the tight, sudden wetness over his cock and came not long after.

They lay there in the straw, pants round their knees, Eddy’s shirt rucked up into his armpits, Bill’s torn off.  
Hats in the dust.  
“Fuck.”  
“Yeah.”  
Bill grunted and sat up, blood seeping down his arm. The stitches were still good.  
“Welcome home, McCutchen.”

Home.

Bill dropped on his stomach to peer around the corner of the box and out of the barn.  
He looked out into the yard and saw Milt chatting with Mr Reed through the window of the office.  
They both laughed at something, Mr Reed tossing a glance at the barn.  
Bill’s heart swelled almost painfully.

Eddy kissed his naked backside and draped a heavy arm over Bill’s waist.  
Yeah, maybe this was home.  
Or something close enough to it.

He closed his eyes, put his cheek in the straw and fell asleep with Eddy draped over him like a particularly ugly blanket in need of a wash.


End file.
